Tej Pratap is determined to beat Akhilesh’s winning record.
On November 20, a by-election will be held in the Kahal seat of Maipuri, which became vacant due to the resignation of Socialist Party Chairman Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh fielded his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav for the seat, considered a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. Anujesh Yadav from the Janata Party and Avneesh Shakya from the Janata Party are fighting in front of him. The Battle of Kahar was fought between two Yadavs of Safai family. In such a situation, SP seemed confident of his victory and tried to give Tej Pratap Yadav a bigger victory than Akhilesh Yadav. To this end, the SP has started weaving its political fabric to break the victory record in 2022.
For the first time in his twenty-five-year political career, Akhilesh Yadav is contesting the 2022 assembly elections from Karhal seat. Akhilesh was elected as MLA of Khar province. Akhilesh defeated SP Singh Baghel of the BJP. After becoming the Kannauj MP in 2024, he resigned from the Khar assembly seat. Now the by-election is going on in Karhal seat. Akhilesh has fielded former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in a parliamentary seat considered favorable to the Samajwadi Party, Tej Pratap Son-in-law of (Lalu Prasad Yadav). The BJP has fielded Anujesh Yadav, brother-in-law of Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav, making Kajal’s campaign interesting.
In 2022, Akhilesh Yadav got 100,000 48,000 197 votes from Karhal assembly seat. While the BJP candidate SP Singh Baghel got 80,000 692 votes. BSP candidate Kuldeep Narayan got 15,000 701 votes. Akhilesh won with 504 votes out of 67,000. Akhilesh won the Kajal seat by the largest margin so far. Before that, the SP won by an average of 30,000 votes. In this case, the big question is can Tej Pratap Yadav break Akhilesh’s record in Karhal?
Cajal Political Mathematics
The Khar assembly seat has about 3.25 lakh voters, of which about 1.25 lakh are Yadav voters. After this, the Dalit community received 40,000 votes and the Shakya community received 38,000 votes. The Pal and Thakur communities have 30,000 voters each and 20,000 Muslim voters. The electorate of Brahmin-Lodh-Vaishya community is about 15-15,000 people. In Kalhar, after Yadav, Dalit and Shakya voters are important, while Baghel and Thakur voters are also important. Shakya and Kshatriya voters are considered to be the core voters of the BJP in the Kahal seat.
Considering the Yadav equation, the BJP posing as a candidate not only the Yadav community but also the son-in-law of the Mulayam family. The SP faces the challenge of preserving its political stronghold and the legacy of Akhilesh Yadav. In 2022, SP Baghel of the Bharatiya Janata Party won the support of the Pal community against Akhilesh. This time, as the Yadav candidate, the SP hopes to attract votes from Pal, Shakya, Lodh, Shakya and Dalit communities. To this end, the SP has started weaving its political fabric.
Big political bet for SP
In a major political move to resolve the caste issue in Kajhar, the SP took Akhilesh Kashyap, Aviharan Singh Jatav and Brahmnand Shakya as Tej Pratap Yadav supporters. The SP is deploying all its senior leaders strategically to win votes from different castes. Ataur Rahman, MLA in charge of SP Kajal seat, told TV-9 Digital that Tej Pratap Yadav’s victory is certain but our effort is to break the victory record in 2022. For this, we are formulating a complete strategy and deploying big leaders from different castes.
Ataur Rahman said SP is trying to unify Karhal’s PDA formula. Yadav voted completely in favor of SP and support was also received from Shakya community to Pal and Lodh communities. Among the Shakya community, Etah MP Devesh Shakya and SP candidate from Farrukhabad Naval Kishore Shakya have been appointed. Apart from this, Mainpuri Alok Shakya district president has taken over the command. SP MP Babu Singh Kushwaha has also been given the responsibility. All these leaders’ programs are organized in all four blocks under the Kahal seat, with most of them organized in Shakya-dominated villages.
Team ready at the booth
Like the Shakyas, the SP has also appointed state president Shyam Pal to win over Pal votes. With the BJP’s Baghel community candidate absent, Pal community votes are increasingly leaning towards the SP. Shyam Pal continues camping and has plans for four days. Similarly, Hamirpur MP Ajendra Singh Rajput has been appointed to influence the Lodhi community votes in favor of the Samajwadi Party. Ajendra Singh is from Lodh community and therefore has the responsibility to increase Lodh votes. Likewise, the SP has appointed important leaders of their communities along with Thakur and Brahmins to increase Dalit votes.
SP MLA Ataur Rahman said that apart from Shivpal Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav, Aditya Yadav also keeps organizing events in Karhal. Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav has completely set up camp in Karhal, organizing eight to 10 programs every day. He said wherever SP leaders came from outside to campaign in Kajhar, they would be paired with local leaders. An electoral strategy has been prepared to divide the Kahal seat into segments and we are working through this strategy at the grassroots level. Apart from this, the entire focus of the SP is to get maximum votes on the polling day and for this purpose, the SP has prepared a team at the polling stations. A ten-member team was formed at each polling station to take voters from their homes to the polling stations.
SP holds out hope for Kajal
Karhal has the largest number of Yadav voters, who are considered the SP’s traditional voters. Although the BJP candidate is from the Yadav community, the SP in Karhal is hoping that Tej Pratap Yadav will get 90% of the votes of the Yadav community. The Palli community may also lean towards it as it does not have a BJP candidate. SP Assuming that BSP is not contesting from Karhal, SP is trying to get Shakya votes and Dalit votes. SP resolved the caste issue in Karhal through supporters of Tej Pratap Yadav. In this proposal, an attempt is made to create the Shakya-Dalit-Kashyap equation. All three castes have one proposer each.
The Kahal election is now no longer a fight between Samajwadi Party and BJP, but between Yadav and Yadav. In this case, voters prefer SP. However, the BJP is pouring all its strength here. Akhilesh Yadav himself has taken over the reins from the Samajwadi Party side, but the electoral strategy is different. In such circumstances, it remains to be seen whether Tej Pratap Yadav can break Akhilesh Yadav’s winning record?
